


Places, and Names

by Circadienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Circadienne/pseuds/Circadienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The art of losing isn't hard to master.  It's an interstitial written between the first and second seasons that actually didn't get completely jossed by canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Places, and Names

**Three.**

He had this shirt, when he was about seventeen. He'd liked to think of it as a uniform, or a definition -- it made him look most like himself, or the self he was then. Long cuffs with little jet buttons, and epaulets, and a lace collar, and it was the most ridiculously romantic thing he'd ever worn. And oh, had he worn it. Or not worn it. Or gone from wearing it, to not wearing it, in such a wonderful array of circumstances that it still got him tingly just thinking about it. Let it never be said that Jack hadn't thoroughly enjoyed his youth.

He was thinking about things he didn't have any more – youth, shirt, the redheaded twins he'd had that summer – as he flipped his braces off his shoulders and his lover started to unbutton his shirt.

"You should have seen me when I was younger," he muttered into Ianto's shoulder, doing some unbuttoning of his own.

"Are there pictures?" the younger man suggested, his last word ending in a hiss as Jack's teeth nipped one pale clavicle.

"I'm afraid not. But I was really something."

"You're still – " Another gasp.

"Still what?" There was an amused edge in his voice, and he knew he was being demanding, but when you've got your hand in someone's pants and your mouth on his neck, you can be a little demanding.

"Still – something."

Jack's lost a lot of things but he's never lost this. He pushes Ianto back on the bed and has his wicked way with him, and since taking a good-looking man out of a suit always improves Jack's mood, it's not until some time later that he wishes, half-asleep, that he still had that shirt. Even now, he expects he'd look good removing it.

 

**Two.**

Oh, yeah, he has a death wish. Which is exceptionally stupid, and he knows it. Who wouldn't want to live forever? It's exciting, it's unique, and hey, that shot/not shot thing is always fun at parties.

What he doesn't tell any of them is how much it hurts. He's impressed by people who can go through, say, torture, come out the other side, dust themselves off, and get on with their lives. He saw the Doctor do it once, hand himself over to pain. Of course, it was all part of a plan, but the screaming was real enough. Afterward he hadn't looked any different, hadn't woken up shouting in the middle of the night -- well, not any more than he ever had before. Jack kept waiting for him to fall apart, but he didn't.

They were sitting on a bench in a funny little park, one sunny afternoon later on -- it was hard to say how much later on, because they were moving so often it was easy to lose track of when they were, but it hadn't been all that long -- and Jack had suddenly decided to ask. "How did you – when you went into the Hall of Mirrors, you knew what they would do," he said, realizing halfway through that it wasn't a question.

"Yes."

A long pause. "And you went anyhow."

"I'm very, very old," the Doctor had said, laughing a little and looking almost sheepish. Then he'd jumped up, said, "Look, I think that man's selling ice creams!" and the subject was closed.

Jack didn't bring it up again. Lately, though? He's starting to know what the Doctor meant. He feels older every time he walks in front of guns and monsters and certain death, and older still when he feels that cold hand brush across his brow and then move on. He doesn't like it. _I'd rather die,_ he thinks, and smirks to himself, and shakes his head when Tosh asks him what's so funny.

 

**One.**

It's a noise that sounds like something else, like a big pump or a siren in the distance or a generator cycling on and off, but it also sounds like nothing else and nothing else sounds like it, that whoosh of time engines and the rush of vacuum. He's been listening for it since – well, since time out of mind.

Time is a bitch. He is unstuck and out of alignment and there have been places when and where he could have found them (that little restaurant with the puppadums!) and caught up. But he hasn't. He's been in this game long enough to know what happens when you cross your own timeline. It's amazing how many idiots think that's a good idea: let's rip a hole in spacetime for fun and profit! He's a lot of things, but he's not an idiot.

So he occupies himself with miscellaneous projects, up to and including saving the world, because he might as well keep busy while he waits.

He's sure they'll catch up with him. They have to know he's not dead, and he knows -- thanks to what he pulled out of Torchwood One, after the incident -- that they made it out alive. Or sort of alive. As alive as he is. Un-dead, anyhow. But finding one man, in all of time and space, that can't be easy, even if Jack did do the obvious thing and plant his ass right over the biggest rift he could find.

Oh, they'll get here. Eventually. He's sure of it. He just wishes it weren't taking so long.


End file.
